Full on, full frontal views from the North…

Well, well this mean and nasty federal government has saved $1.4 billion over the past 18 months by screwing the most vulnerable ‘people’ in Australia. They should be so proud of themselves. We really need a government of the people, for the people, and we need it now.

We have well in excess of three million people living below the poverty line, struggling to survive, these are the facts! This government prattles on about creating 403,000 jobs last year, what they don’t tell you is that ‘real’ unemployment in Australia is approximately 9.8% with a figure of approximately 980,000 people unemployed, so in reality they are making no impression.

What a joy it was to read in the Townsville Bulletin “Join the Stolen Wages Class Action”….Let’s do this together, this issue has been a blight on Queensland history. The exploitation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people between 1939 and 1972 is something we as Queenslanders should be ashamed of, and I sincerely hope that these first Australians win their case against the Queensland government and each and every person who was exploited, or their surviving family member is repaid with interest, for the injustice they have suffered.

Labor’s Mark Butler says unions are in ‘deep crisis’ thanks to Howard ‘smashing the power of organised labour’. Although the history books say that Howard’s WorkChoices policy was killed by the trade union movement and Kevin07, in reality, the biggest trick the Liberals and big business-devils ever played was convincing the world WorkChoices was dead, buried and cremated. Just when workers felt they were safe, protected by the Fair Work Act, the Liberals and big business were bringing in individual contracts and minimum rates by stealth, and finding loopholes to sabotage collective bargaining. How did they do it? By turning workers against unions. And wow, wasn’t it easy.

In my study of trade union narratives, I have looked at the way the media framed trade unions, from the shearer’s strike, the pig iron strike, the waterfront dispute, the Hawke Accord to WorkChoices. There is a consistent theme in the coverage:…

I have not been a fan of Bill Shorten in the past, however that changed yesterday with his speech to the National Press Club. Addressing the current inequity in Australia concerning big business having an increase of 20% in profit over recent years while wages remain stagnant, I believe will touch a raw nerve in the view of the general public. While CEOs remuneration continues to grow at a very healthy rate at the expense of the workforce, has stuck out like a sore toe to everyday wage earners over the past 5 years.

Also Shortens plan for a federal corruption commission likewise will be welcomed by the general public, provided it is set up on the original NSW ICAC not the recently watered down version, which was a deliberate weakening because it was catching far too many LNP MPs in NSW.

And speaking of watering down, as a concerned ratepayer I would like to know how far the construction of the second water pipeline has progressed, with a few recent showers I believe we still have slightly more than just 15% in our Ross River Dam, however the pipeline construction and the solar array to power it while it is of the utmost urgency for the largest tropical city in Northern Australia, seems to be classified information? Why is it so difficult to get answers to perfectly reasonable questions in this country?

I noticed outgoing President of the federal ALP Mark Butler in his last speech as ALP President has expressed frustration with the factionalism of the party, and has called for greater democracy for ALP members, which is long overdue. We in North Queensland were aware of the tricks that the right wing of the party got up to, we even had someone go to prison for electoral tampering in the 1990s. At that time the right wing had people voting from cemeteries and post office boxes, I don’t know if things have improved since then, I would hope so?

For the ALP to have only 50,000 members Australia wide is appalling but until they develop policies that attract the everyday working families votes they are destined to, as the LNP, and in fact all political parties across the western world, deteriorate in membership numbers. We suffer from a similar stagnation as the USA in as much as we have two right wing main parties to choose from and then a host of smaller parties with not much hope of being elected.

Australia is badly in need of a working families hero, a person/party who will take some of the burden away from them and give them a chance to get ahead. The current federal LNP government is burdening working families so much that they have no avenue to progress, what with rent/mortgage, food, clothing (including school uniforms), petrol, electricity, car registration and insurance with no pay rises, they just can’t breathe.

Well again, the Roy Morgan Research Corporation figures for Dec quarter of 2017 are out, and they don’t make for enjoyable reading if you are either unemployed or underemp0loyed. According to the corporation we had 2.6 million people either unemployed or underemployed 1.32 million Australians were unemployed, which was an increase on the same period the year before, an increase of 126,000 (up 0.6%) on a year ago.

The Roy Morgan Research Corporation puts ‘real’ unemployment for the December quarter, Australia wide at 9.8%, substantially higher than the year before, and yet this Coalition government tells us that everything is good, I beg to differ. Coalition governments do precisely what this one has done; their policies have bought five consecutive quarters of falling living standards for ordinary people. We must remove them at the next possible opportunity or we will continue to slide into the mire.

In a desperate attempt to get her name in the news the Queensland LNP leader Deb “freckles” Frecklington has put on a mock protest over wording for Commonwealth Games volunteers. What a great shame Ms “freckles” couldn’t come up with some new economic policy or to call for a start date to the promised $100 Million hydroelectricity scheme, promised by Labor during the election campaign to give certainty to North Queensland businesses.

I also noted “Hydro the best way forward” Townsville Bulletin Saturday 26th January 2018. I saw Professor Simon Bartlett’s recommendation to dramatically increase the height of the Burdekin Falls Dam wall by 14.6m, instead of the proposed 2m. The Burdekin Falls Dam is Queensland’s most reliable dam and it would make a lot of sense for the larger project to go ahead, provided the federal LNP government would make a significant contribution to ease the burden, it would be the first significant funding for N.Q. since the Burdekin Falls Dam was completed by the Hawke government in 1987, the good Professor has sited many good reasons for the project to go ahead asap in that article.

This is what the newly elected Queensland government should be moving on, progressive renewable energy projects, which if built now will be a great investment for the State’s long term future, producing both affordable energy and many, many jobs.

I refer to P.McDonald’s Letter to the Editor dated 26th October 2015 Islam insists on tolerance but gives none in return since that letter was written we have seen numerous terror attacks at home and abroad with many lives lost.

What we have not seen is the Muslim community speaking out condemning those terror attacks committed by people of their religion, albeit fanatics. Religious fanatics of any religion are a danger to any civilized community. At present we have Sudanese children in Melbourne running wild, seemingly paying no respect for our ‘man made laws’ and this has to stop.

Australia has hitherto been a civilized nation, with one disgraceful continuing exception, that being the treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders since European settlement.

Australian Muslims must learn that in a basically civilized country like Australia, our ‘man made laws’ are to be treated as supreme, and that religious laws follow a distant second, and until that is learned by the Muslim community they will always remain in isolation from the rest of us. We don’t dress like fruit bats here, and anyone who does will receive the condemnation of the public at large.

Well, what a Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has turned out to be, he has presided over five consecutive quarters of falling living standards for the Australian people. At least he has something to boast about at LNP black bow tie dinners, the deficit has ballooned to the point of trebling under this LNP government, and this is after they have frozen wages, and cut all but essential services, to which they have reduced. The incompetence required to get that result is mind-blowing. Under any other circumstances The Treasurer would be sacked.

Congratulations Mr. Turnbull and still 46% of the people still approve of you and your government. Your LNP government has lost the country the car industry, ‘real’ unemployment is running around 9.5% though it would seem that the Australian people have a masochistic streak, one can only wonder when they will really say, enough is enough!

Workers’ rights have been earned, not granted. A little over a century ago, the Australian Labor Party was born out of the hardship of the working class. When I use the word ‘workers’ in this sense, I refer to those of us who work for someone else in return for a wage. And this is not to imply that those who pay the wages do not work, of course they do. Many of you out there in the workforce have very good wages and conditions now. You believe you don’t need the Labor Party or the Union movement any more for protection. You tend to begrudge having to pay union dues, even though those dues are tax deductable, but it would be better to look on it as a form of industrial insurance.

These good wages and conditions are a result of union activity in the past, good unions are still battling away on your behalf in the Industrial Courts. Wages and conditions in Australia were not as good as they are now in the past. Ask any working man or woman over the age of 70 or so what it was like when they began their working life. There is a great fear among older people that the young workers will learn too late, the value of unions – good conditions and wages had to be fought for and won the hard way in our working days. The younger workers have never had to battle; they regard these wages and conditions as a right, and they seemingly do not realize how easy ‘these rights’ can be taken away, please don’t let the employers turn back the clock to the bad old days.